6:26 PM,
Jan. 8, 2013

Gregory Crewdson, left, at work in the documentary "Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters."

Written by

John Monaghan
Detroit Free Press Special Writer

In describing how he works, photographer Gregory Crewdson doesn't spend a lot of time discussing exposures and f-stops. Instead, he speaks the language of the indie filmmaker. Crewdson scouts locations, hires actors, fashions elaborate set pieces and then tweaks his images in postproduction.

Taking his cues from Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch and Edward Hopper, he creates dizzyingly detailed large-scale images, often of lonely people dwarfed by oppressive environments. You could base a novel, or at least a short story, on each one.